Crop mapping
Agriculture land mapping for pesticides monitoring in the hydrosphere
Landcover & landuse mapping for environmental monitoring is one of our key activities. Today, lot of remote sensing applications in this domain are possible and the users´ requests are more and more demanding. Having in mind the dynamics of landscape changes the agriculture land is in the main challenge.
In 2007 Gisat has been contracted to deliver acriculture crop map for the whole country. This task was part of the project “Occurence and transport of pesticides in the hydrosphere” realized by the Czech Hydrometeorological Institute (Department of Water Quality) and the Czech University of Life Sciences (Department of Soil Science and Soil Protection). One the the project topics is pesticide risk areas delineation. Agricultural crop map represents the main input here. In the next step the problems of pesticides transport through the soil layer and potential underground water contamination are discussed.
Crop mapping for such a large region is not an easy task. It is necessary to use satellite imagery covering large area with high temporal resolution. Envisat MERIS data with spatial resolution of 300m has been processed to classify five agricultural clasess using the neural network classifier.
Gisat ISO compliant
The company is certified according to the ISO 9001:2000 & 14001:2004 standards
In September Gisat has formally completed its effort to certify company´s Quality Management System (QMS) and Environmental Management System (EMS) according to the ISO 9001:2000 & 14001:2004 standards.
The certification through the United Registrar of Systems Ltd., an internationally recognized certification body headquartered in the United Kingdom, confirmed our long-term focus to maintain and continuously improve the quality of provided services and products.
At the same time the company is aware of increasing importance of environmental issues and reflects its responsibility to contribute to sustainable development principles.
You can find more information about about our QMS and EMS in the Quality & Environment section
ISO 9001:2000 Certificate of Registration
ISO 1401:2004 Certificate of Registration
FLOREO prevents flooding
How Earth Observation can help during flood risk modelling and monitoring?
FLOREO (Demonstration of ESA Environments in support to FLOod Risk Earth Observation monitoring) is an ESA PECS project that is part of the programme to support Czech research and industry in cooperation with ESA before the country becomes a full ESA Member.
The project is oriented on development and implementation of relevant EO-based services in the Czech Republic to support existing hydrological monitoring activities, especially snow melt and surface water runoff contributing to flooding events. The idea of the project and the approach chosen have been thoroughly discussed with the Czech Hydrometerological Institute (CHMI), the main national organization mandated in monitoring and prevention of flood threat.
The use of EO data as a tool to deliver timely, spatially exhaustive and consistent information about different parameters of land surface brings new possibilities for hydrological monitoring systems used in flood risk analysis. The information about snow, as an important component in hydrological monitoring systems, is delivered by means of EO in full coverage compared to only discrete point measurements. Other land surface properties and their dynamics monitored by EO allow more detailed predictions of for instance surface water runoff contributing to flooding events.
The proposed methodology is based on combination of the different spatial and temporal scales of the imagery as well as employing optical and radar technology. The use of medium and coarse resolution satellite imagery with high temporal resolution will be focused on snow cover mapping & monitoring.
Soil moisture topic will be approached from two different aspects: use of soil water modeling technique (by means of soil and precipitation data) and use of soil moisture products derived from EO data. The model may be run regularly to simulate soil moisture changes in a predefined grid. Surface water runoff modeling and the flood risk assessment will be approached by analysis of the up-to-date information about capacity of soil water infiltration and corresponding surface water run off risk from coming precipitation. This analysis includes soil moisture modeling and vegetation monitoring. The data about vegetation status in form of decadal LAI or NDVI map will be used. The CN2-Runoff Curve Number method is used to model water run off risk. The availability of above information together with the land cover data and soil map will allow much advanced and more reliable implementation of this model.
After the assessment and validation of modeling approaches it is expected the last step will represent the integration of weather scenario forecast data to allow modeling and quantification of eventual flood risk.
The project also includes development of web portal based solution with integration of external data sources. The portal will be based on open standards respecting ESA recommended SOA architecture (WS) and will provide two types of access. The user interface in Czech language will allow national users direct access to web portal services. It will provide basic, easy and simple access to predefined set of service elements implemented within this system. This shall be the dedicated solution for the main user – Czech Hydrometerological Institute. For the other users the FLOREO service elements will be accessible through the global ESA SSE portal. Full set of required interfaces for service publishing (such as Service Provider or Data Provider) will be implemented.
FLOREO team is formed by three Czech partners: SPRINX (project leader), Gisat a Faculty of Science of Charles University in Prague
COCONUT project
Understand the effect of land-use change on biodiversity in Europe
Since November 2006 Gisat is involved in the COCONUT (Understanding effeCts Of land use Changes ON ecosystems to halt loss of biodiversity due to habitat destrUction, fragmenTation and degradation) project. It is two year FP6 project coordinated by the Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences in Uppsala with eleven partner institutions of eight EU countries.
The main objectives have been defined as follows:
* to assess impact of historical habitat loss on biodiversity
* to evaluate biodiversity loss in Natura 2000 sites
* to model impacts of future land use on biodiversity
Gisat keeps the responsibility for mapping part of the project – land use change mapping in about 150 selected sites of five EU countries (Germany, Spain, Sweden, Finland and Estonia). Except for Corine Land Cover like mappping (43 thematic classes, minimum mapping unit of 25 ha, minimum mapping change of 5 ha) the important task was to realize detailed mapping of the most valuable areas – from the biodiversity aspect these were defined as various local types of seminatural grassland.
Such a mapping was based on the current aerial orthophotos and the archive aerial images of 60’s of the last century (first of all the archive images have been orthocorrected and mosaicked).
At the same time wide range of biodiversity data about the species richness of plants and animals have been collected by local experts to evaluate the impact of historical loss, fragmentation and degradation of habitats.
More information about COCONUT and related projects can be found here